


Seeking Dreams & Lives

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Gen, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-28
Updated: 2011-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out doing fieldwork, Nyota learns a new song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeking Dreams & Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted for [my birthday commentficathon](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/547041.html) and cleaned up since. With thanks to [](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/profile)[**igrockspock**](http://igrockspock.livejournal.com/)&[](http://merisunshine36.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://merisunshine36.livejournal.com/) **merisunshine36** for the ideas that led to this.  
>  Title from "[Star Sisters](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/398512.html)". Other lyrics from "[Starship and Haiku](http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/starship-haiku.html)".  
> 

She's been given a prickly straw mat to sit on, the sweltering air reeks of the barnyard outside, and Nyota Uhura currently hates this assignment. When she chose to collect notes on linguistic drift among a nonHuman population living on Earth, she'd expected to enter a sleekly hypermodern residence and work with refined spacefarers; she'd always envisioned the people who travel between planets as more advanced and refined than ordinary Humans.

This Rasselassi family, though, the Farsenai, are content to live in one ancient-styled, creaking building with their livestock, on the second floor above the goats and chickens, on a farm so remote it took an all-night groundcar ride from the shuttleport just to reach it. The father's hardly said anything, just leaned back against the wall behind him with a satisfied air, and the mother and daughter have happily gone on for hours about their plan to gain permission to import and raise Rasselassi _hinetha_. Nyota's smiled, nodded, and taken notes, and has to admire their persistence in the face of Earth and Federation bureaucracy, but still, she was expecting something more... sophisticated.

Master Khivas has gone down to do some chore, and Mistress Adae took Jenae, her adolescent daughter, to their separate kitchen to fetch refreshments, not that Nyota has much appetite with this hot fetid wind blowing across her. Left alone for the moment she smooths wisps of hair away from her damp forehead and hums a lullaby from her earliest memories.

"Miss Cadet Uhura?" asks Jenae, suddenly in the doorway, and Nyota startles. "Is that _Kudasennsa_?"

"I'm sorry," Nyota murmurs, but Jenae smiles, white teeth bright against deep blue skin.

"Oh, that's my favorite song," she says, swaying to a beat in her memory, pushing her dark-pink hair back from her face as she inhales. Jenae shifts and closes her eyes, sliding her feet a little apart, and Nyota remembers that centered stance from her own performances; she glances down at her padd's screenful of notes and quickly touches 'save', just as Jenae begins to sing.

Just as Jenae fills the room with a swooping whirl of notes, swinging into a lilting melody that pulls Nyota's spine laser-straight and tingles a rhythm through her blood. It's superficially, coincidentally a little like the lullaby, and an astonishing cascade of music; Nyota can hear a call in the unknown words and their rousing tune, an inspiration to rise and explore and do. Jenae curls a final phrase three times, slower and deeper on each, and she holds the last note until the walls seem to reverberate.

Nyota realizes she's been holding her breath, gasping an inhale as Jenae looks at her with wide amber eyes until she can throw her hands up and applaud with all due delight. "Oh, that's lovely!" Jenae smiles and comes back to sit beside her, and Nyota grins, toggling open a new file. "So lovely! What's it called again?"

" _Kudasennsa_ ," Jenae tells her, "Ship-Song. Mother taught it to me on our journey to Terra. I'll write it down for you." Nyota hands over her padd, watching Jenae's six-fingered hands fly over the keyboard, listening to her hum as she writes down the musical notation, and envisions the Farsenai aboard a starship, a smaller Jenae learning this song from her parents as they traveled between the stars. To keep from staring as Jenae writes, Nyota glances around the room, built of boards and paint, furnished with low homemade cushions and woven mats, and considers voluntarily chosen simplicity and her own preconceptions.

When Jenae hands the padd back and asks, "Do you have Ship-songs?" Nyota already knows what answer to give.

"There's a song about a famous ship's name, and the dynasty of ships that have had it; Starfleet is building the newest one right now, and I intend to serve on it. It's going to be the most advanced ship, with an excellent captain and crew, but..." she drops her voice, and Jenae leans in closer, enthralled. "I've wanted to serve on it since I heard the song." Jenae nods, a kindred spirit, and Nyota takes a deep breath and sits up straight, supporting her airway as she was taught as she begins to sing. "I was born of wood and sails, when only birds could fly the skies..."

\-- * -- * --

Nyota's padd beeps, alerting her that pickup's in fifteen minutes, and her first thought is, "Oh, not _yet!_ " Jenae's still beside her, frowning thoughtfully over the translation they've put together, and Mistress Adae watches benevolently. Nyota smiles and gratefully inhales the cooled evening air, thinking about the notes she's taken on Jenae's pronunciation versus her parents', on the songs she's learned and the ones she's taught, on the rewards of this day.

Jenae reluctantly hands the padd back. "I don't think I can make it scan any better."

"It's lovely, and it works. Thank you for translating _Kudasennsa_ for me!"

"Thank you for the song about your ship," Jenae answers. "I can sing it when I'm spinning."

"I like the thought of that. When I do earn my place on the _Enterprise_ I'll think of you singing her song." Jenae reaches for Nyota's hand and squeezes it, and Nyota squeezes back, feeling the strength and extra width of Jenae's hand.

"Why don't you sing _Kudasennsa_ together before Cadet Uhura has to leave?" Mistress Adae smiles at them, widely enough for Nyota to catch a glimpse of the golden filigree inlaid in her canine teeth. "Your translation. I would love to hear it."

Jenae looks at Nyota and nods, and she grins back. "Of course, Mistress Adae." They sit up side by side, and the song does scan, quite beautifully.

" _Still my warm song touches notes clear and high  
Outward I go and I know I will fly a new dawn..._ "


End file.
